What to expect in first visit
The first "regular" dental visit should be no later than your child's first birthday or when they get their first teeth. We will gently examine your child's teeth and gums. X-rays may be taken (to reveal decay and check on the progress of your child's permanent teeth under the gums). We may clean your child's teeth and apply topical fluoride to help protect the teeth against decay. We will share information with you on healthy diet, those that promote healthy teeth and those that don’t.
If this is not your first visit to the dentist, each office can use different techniques specially for babies or toddlers, but if this is your first visit to our office you can expect these steps:
We do the check-in process, we work based on appointments, we don't overbook our schedule to avoid long wait times, just for the first visit to our office you can spend more time during the check in process, where we collect all the information to know your kid better in terms of health, we verify previously your insurance in case you have one, so you can know at the beginning of your appointment if there is any co-payment for your visit. Remember, we just help to process the claim for your insurance but the full financial responsibility belongs to the policy holder. We work based on what the insurance told us what is cover and what is not, but they doesn't guarantee payment until the claim is received, this is why we focus a lot to verify each insurance to let you know in advance what is cover and what is not.
We receive referrals from other offices like General dentists, but we don't have any relationship than professional with them, and we can't share the information with them or viceversa due HIPAA reasons, this is why we need a signed authorization to do that and also they need that, so please understand that it's patient responsibility to be sure to bring referral paperwork or make sure the other office send the proper information to us in order to avoid delays and misunderstandings.
After the check-in process, one of our Dental assistants take vitals to check your weight, blood pressure and any other medical and dental condition, that help us to know better what to do in case of a medical emergency. This is the only way to keep a record how your kid is growing and we can improve the communication with you and your pediatrician to improve the oral health
In case of X-rays are needed, we take only those needed, with high level technology X-rays machines providing the minimum exposure possible.
We use Pediatric Dental Benches, we find out those are better for kids than regular dental chairs, reducing the stress when the dental chair is moving backward. Kids are stress and we design our office to try to reduce the level of stress during your kid's dental appointment. Also we have a open bay area for regular checkups, most families with several kids can be seen almost at the same time, but if you prefer more privacy you can request one of our private rooms
Our pediatric dentist will do the examination very patient and gently, sometimes kids are scare, but the most important part is work with them to reduce the level of anxiety, with the time they will realize nothing bad happens in a dental appointment.
One of our Dental assistant apply the fluoride in case is require and approve by parent. Fluoride is recommended and is not harmful if is applied in the right amount, but we respect the decision of parents about that, just request it or not.
Last but not least, one our dental assistant will help you with the check-out process. It's fast, simple and we try to make it fun for the kids.
We reserve the right of schedule more than 1 child at the time and this will depend of your number of missing appointments in the past. Remenber if we want to keep low wait times we need to be consider with others and notify with 48 hours in advance if any change in your schedule will impact ours.
Safety in every procedure is our priority number one at our office, we try our best but some times we just need to give the kids time, and use behavior management from parents and pediatric dentist. Together we can do a great dental experience. It's important to know we only allow one parent and no kids (except if they have an appointment also) during appointments, this is because the space is reduced and also the kids watching appointments make them scare and we don't want that for future appointments with them